June 17, 2020
Search Results for: economy
Environmental concerns and the changing work landscape could lead to a noticeable drop in both domestic and international business travel, as nearly half of UK workers (48 percent) are concerned about its negative environmental impact, according to new research from 
June 10, 2020
IWBI launches WELL health and safety rating for buildings
The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has annouced the launch of the WELL Health-Safety Rating for all building and facility types, an “evidence-based, third-party verified rating focusing on operational policies, maintenance protocols and design strategies to address a post COVID-19 environment”. The new health and safety rating is one of the earliest outcomes of IWBI’s Task Force on COVID-19, a group of nearly 600 public health officials, virologists, government officials, academics, business leaders, architects, designers, building scientists and real estate professionals, which was established in late March to help guide a response to the pandemic. (more…)
June 9, 2020
Piecing together a new world of work after lockdown
After months of lockdown nobody can be certain how the world will look when we eventually re-emerge from the Covid 19 crisis. Yet something seems certain – things will never be the same again. Just as the Second World War spawned the NHS, it’s clear that society is going to be re-shaped quite possibly around a bigger, more proactive government, forced to step in to help any number of industries. Unlike the banking crisis of 2008, the powers that be won’t simply be able to re-assembled the shattered economic jigsaw as it once was. (more…)
June 4, 2020
Right, said Fred. Here I am again
If there has been an underlying driver of workplace thinking over the past several decades, it has been a rejection of the principles of scientific management. These begat the idea of the office as a factory, subject to the same rigid times and places of work and the same culture of process, efficiency and productivity. This made a pantomime villain of its key figure Frederick Taylor. The worst adjective you could use to describe a working culture was Taylorist. (more…)
June 3, 2020
The second wave of digital transformation after lockdown
The reimagining of business in the digital age to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements has been happening at varying speed for decades. The coronavirus pandemic is impacting digital transformation in a range of ways. (more…)
June 2, 2020
Working life set to become more precarious and unequal
The future of work is likely to be even more precarious and unequal, according to a new research review from academics at Durham University Business School, Kings College Business School and University Paris-Dauphine. Dr. Jeremy Aroles, Assistant Professor in Organisation Studies at Durham University Business School, alongside colleagues, Dr. Nathalie Mitev (King’s College) and Professor François?Xavier de Vaujany (University Paris-Dauphine), reviewed a wide range of research related to working life new work practices and summarised this into a number of predictions for the future of work. This research review paper was published in the journal ‘New Technology, Work and Employment’, which is open access throughout June. (more…)
May 27, 2020
Majority of HR professionals aware of value they add to their organisation
Four in five (80 percent) of those who work in the domain of human resources in the UK and Ireland say that a role in HR and other parts of the ‘people profession’ offers them a meaningful career and almost three quarters (73 percent) believe they have the opportunity to add value to their organisation, the latest People Profession Survey from the CIPD and Workday claims. (more…)
May 27, 2020
Corporate wellbeing is too focused on sick workers
Corporate wellbeing initiatives are often too focused on sick individuals, and firms should be addressing the root causes of physical and mental health by building healthy organisations instead. That is the main claim of a new report from the Corporate Research Forum (CRF) report, supported by Lane 4 and Mercer. The report is based on interviews with 150 HR leaders from FTSE 100 and similar sized businesses. (more…)
May 19, 2020
Global carbon dioxide emissions fall dramatically because of lockdown
Carbon dioxide emissions have declined rapidly during the Covid-19 lockdown according to a new global academic study, but experts are warning that the reductions may be short-lived as normal economic activity resumes. The findings appeared today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The international study of carbon emissions found that daily emissions declined by around 17 percent between January and early April, compared to the previous year and could decline anywhere between 4.4 percent and 8 percent for the whole of 2020, the largest annual drop since the Second World War. (more…)
May 18, 2020
Majority of UK businesses now automating key processes
The UK is making great strides in adopting process automation technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) and process mining, according to new research from digital intelligence company ABBYY. The research report, The State of Process Mining and RPA (registration), claims that 64 percent of UK businesses are already using process mining technologies, with almost 3 in 10 (28 percent) currently using RPA and a further 34 percent intending to start in the next year. This comes as no surprise, since a vast majority believe that process mining (91 percent) and RPA (87 percent) are, or would be, useful to their business. (more…)
May 14, 2020
Promotion: Where can you find talented freelancers that share your passion?
The number of people freelancing around the world is expected to increase significantly from the current estimated 150 million to over 520 million in the next five years. The freelance industry is expected to contribute about US$2.7 trillion by 2025 as more and more businesses and entrepreneurs increasingly rely on online outsourcing to get their work done efficiently. (more…)
June 12, 2020
Building a culture of trust has never been more important
by Jonathan Richards • Comment, Workplace